


How to Build A Shieldmaiden (Without Really Trying)

by rain_sleet_snow



Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: (Éowyn and Éomer's parents), Brother-Sister Relationships, Canon-Typical Sexism, Canonical Character Death, Childhood Trauma, Cousins, Drunkenness, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Matriarch, Mentors, Shieldmaidens, Théodred is well and truly out of his depth, War, but he's going to try swimming anyway
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-12
Updated: 2020-01-12
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:53:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22227436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rain_sleet_snow/pseuds/rain_sleet_snow
Summary: Being a cousin is a position of responsibility for which there are no manuals. Théodred makes it up as he goes along.
Relationships: Morwen of Lossarnach & her family, Théodred & Théoden, Éomer Éadig & Éowyn, Éomer Éadig & Éowyn & Théodred, Éowyn & Théodred (Tolkien)
Comments: 26
Kudos: 85





	How to Build A Shieldmaiden (Without Really Trying)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [brynnmclean (ilfirin_estel)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilfirin_estel/gifts).



> For my 12 fandoms of Christmas prompt bonanza, for Brynn. :)

Théodred needed air. The Golden Hall of his ancestors was a jewel without parallel, but the ventilation left a lot to be desired, and the lack of air and the noise levels were getting to him. Meduseld hadn't had much to sing about lately, not with the death of his uncle and then so soon afterwards his aunt, and Théodred’s feast of return was correspondingly outsized. People kept handing him flagons of mead, something he usually had no objection to at all, but generally they let him pause between flagons, or maybe drink some ale. Not this time. The consequence was that his head was spinning and he needed a piss.

He took advantage of a ruckus caused by Gamling knocking something over to duck out of the circle he was in and spirit himself behind a large pillar. A serving-girl tripped over the knot of men and sent the tray she was carrying flying; a cheer went up as someone helped the girl to her feet and several someones went after the contents of the tray, most likely to eat it, and Théodred made a quick exit into the cool night air.

It was quiet - relatively speaking - and dark - relatively speaking. There was still noise in the upper and lower town, and in the many outbuildings, secondary buildings, courtyards, and practice spaces that surrounded the great hall. Torches were lit, too; great smoky torches to guide your way at the main points, and smaller ones lighting those with errands still to do, or those making their way home. Lights gleamed behind each shutter, and a great harvest moon garlanded with stars hung over the plains of the Rohirrim. Théodred decided he would rather not piss in full view of his subjects, and headed for some darker and quieter corner.

After several false starts, he found a suitable location, and relieved the pressure on his bladder. This far away the noise from the hall was jolly rather than deafening. In the midst of it, after several months out in the marches with no more men about him than his éored, he had felt like Helm's horn had been duplicated and was being blown repeatedly a few inches from his ears. Though he looked forward to returning, he felt there was no harm in getting a few more moments' peace and quiet before he did so.

He made his way to the practice courts, which ought to have been silent; nobody would be trying their weapons skills now, except perhaps in a duel it would be his duty to stop. Théodred heard a faint clacking noise and frowned, puzzled: he walked a little faster, came around a corner, and found his little cousin Éowyn hammering brutally at his slightly larger cousin Éomer with a wooden sword. Éomer was trying to remonstrate with her in hissed tones about form and footwork, but she wasn't listening, and when he saw Théodred he dropped both his jaw and his guard.

Éowyn, who had her back to Théodred, caught Éomer a stunning blow on the arm and he yelped.

“Crybaby,” Éowyn said, in a nastier tone than he had yet heard from her. She was usually very quiet, and so was Éomer. All the children who had come from his aunt and uncle's stronghold were very quiet, probably because losing most of the community's adult men to an orcish raid and then being besieged was a terrifying experience, but Éomer and Éowyn were even more so, because during the siege Princess Théodwyn had turned her face to the wall and died. His aunt had been a healthy woman before she had lost her husband, but few of the adults had been spared by the sickness the orcs had seeded their wells with. One of those that had had confided in Théodred when he broke the siege and relieved the defenders that Théodwyn had lost much of her strength with Éomund’s death, and had not had time to recover.

Reason enough for even a gentle girl like Éowyn to twist and snap like a badly-broken colt. But it didn’t explain the _entire_ tableau currently before Théodred.

“It's Cousin Théodred and we're in trouble,” Éomer hissed. “I told you so!”

Both children were sloppily dressed in ordinary day clothes, their hair clumsily tied back, and Éowyn had borrowed a boy's shirt and a pair of her brother's breeches, heavily belted; her child's overdress was short enough to pass for a tunic, given the belt. Certainly this was not how they had been dressed two hours ago, when Théodred had last seen them, sitting at his father's table in their best tunics, Éowyn wearing a little gold circlets and a fine dress that had been cut down out of one of his aunt's old silk gowns, an arm-ring sliding down to Éomer's wrist. The last men living of Éomund's éored had claimed at least two kills from Éomer's time defending the walls; he had been awarded the ring for courage. Théodred wondered now if it was well done to expect him to wear it, and also if anyone had asked whether _Éowyn_ should be wearing an arm-ring.

Théodred scratched his head. “You're not in trouble,” he said finally.

Éowyn stuck her tongue out at Éomer.

“She hit me,” Éomer pointed out. “And we're up when we're not supposed to be.”

Théodred thought Éomer would make a great lawspeaker one day. “You dropped your guard, it serves you right. And I don't care that you're out of bed.” He sat down on a bench, the better to think. No use sending the boy to the kitchens; it'd be a riot and he'd only get shouted at for being where he shouldn’t. “Look... there's a man in my éored who does all the salves, horses and men. His name's Alfrid. Crowds make him nervous and ale makes him sick, so he won't be in the hall. He'll be in the stables. Éomer, you go to him and tell him I sent you and that you have a bruise from training that wants salving. You do exactly as he tells you - and then go to _bed_ , understand.”

Éomer paused on his toes, ready to leave. Théodred felt a headache coming on. He waited the boy out.

“Éowyn should come with me,” Éomer said finally.

“I need to talk to Éowyn,” Théodred said. That was the other thing about them, wasn't it? Yes. They would not be separated. One day, Théodred assumed, they would feel safe enough not to insist on sharing a room and going everywhere in each other's company, no matter the inconvenience to themselves or anyone else. Currently they became visibly jittery if out of sight of each other, which was a problem, because Théodred needed to talk to Éowyn alone.

Éomer hesitated.

“She's perfectly safe with me,” Théodred said. “I may be drunk, Éomer son of Éomund, but I am not incapable. And if any vicious orcs manage to sneak in to the second-best guarded city in the Mark, Éowyn will beat them up.”

There was a very small noise that might have been a giggle from Éowyn, which was a start. Théodred flapped a hand at Éomer. “Off you go.”

Reluctantly, Éomer went. It was Éowyn, now, who looked desperately uncomfortable; the wooden sword had fallen to her side and she was shifting from foot to foot. Théodred thought very hard and very quickly, and arrived only at the conclusion that he should start with what he knew how to do. He'd heard all about younger relatives - Boromir was his younger brother's closest companion, and it was much easier to get him talking about Faramir than it was to shut him up - but given the distance at which his cousins had lived from Edoras he didn't know a great deal about them in a practical sense.

Théodred rubbed a hand over his chin and thought of something to say before Éowyn could start to cry.

“Your footwork is the worst I have ever seen,” he said finally. “But you're young and it's fixable.” He got up, ignoring a slight wobble, and picked up the wooden sword Éomer had dropped. “Copy me.”

He walked Éowyn through some simple blocks and blows, correcting her as she went. She made a lot of mistakes, he noticed, but never the same mistake twice. He made her run through the exercises again, twice, and then sat back down on the bench.

“Now come here,” he said, patting the bench next to him, “and tell me why it's so important you learn how to wield a sword.”

Asked nicely, Éowyn talked for what felt like hours. Théodred listened with increasing horror to a very frank and observant account of life under siege and his aunt's final illness, which Éomer might have been kept away from but Éowyn had not been. Perhaps this was a girl's equivalent of Éomer's hours on the defensive walls, but Théodred could not approve of it, and he was furious that Théodwyn's women had spoken openly of the carnage they feared when the orcs breached the walls before a child of Éowyn's age.

“It's very brave of you,” he said, when her voice had trailed off into nothing. “To answer fear with a fighting heart, and take courage from action.”

Éowyn sniffled and wiped her face with her stolen sleeve. “But they won't let me. They think I'm stupid. They think I'm a baby.”

“You're not stupid,” Théodred said, with a burst of temper that surprised him, “or a baby. You're a shieldmaiden in training.”

Éowyn gave him a surprised look. “I thought I was supposed to be a lady.”

“Who said that?”

Éowyn clammed up. Théodred took this to mean that the same people who had called Éomer the man of his house and put him up on the walls with a bow and arrow had told Éowyn she was a lady now. He also took this to mean that there were a lot of them. Putting two and two together and getting six, Théodred guessed that Éowyn's little gold circlet was maybe just as ill-advised as Éomer's arm-ring.

Théodred wished very much that his aunt or his mother was still alive and could deal with this, but since neither was, he resigned himself to appealing to a higher power: Morwen Steelsheen. Grandmother always preferred older children, and Éomer and Éowyn were sufficiently young and muddy that they had probably only been briefly presented to her, so as not to tire her. That would need to change.

“You are nine years old,” he said finally. “You can figure out how to be a lady and a shieldmaiden later. In the meantime, Éowyn, I want to see those blocks and blows again, twice, and I want them perfect. And then you may go to bed.”

Éowyn leapt up and went through the motions again. They were nearly perfect. He corrected her, but said they were good enough; Éowyn stuck out her chin and did them again. They were still not perfect, but they were much better.

Éowyn went quietly enough in the direction of her and Éomer's room, but she shrank behind Théodred when her nurse came in view, red-faced with anger - and probably distress, too, Théodred thought, making an effort to be fair. It would have been Ecgfrith that had braided the circlet into Éowyn's hair.

“Good evening, Ecgfrith,” he said politely, keeping one hand on Éowyn's shoulder. “Éowyn and I have been having an important discussion.”

“I'm sorry if the girl was bothering you, Prince Théodred -“

“It was a very important discussion,” Théodred said, drawing himself up to his full height and hoping he wasn't swaying. “I will be taking my cousins to see our grandmother tomorrow mo- tomorrow _afternoon_ , Ecgfrith. No need for them to dress smartly, but please make sure they are not completely covered in horsehair.”

“Yes, Prince Théodred,” Ecgfrith said, which was what, under these circumstances, Théodred liked to hear.

“I have already told both Éomer and Éowyn they are not in trouble. They should not have been sneaking around behind your back, but they gave me some information I needed to know, so on this occasion I have forgiven them.” Théodred directed a half-strength glare at the top of Éowyn's bent head. “And I'm sure they will ask your forgiveness, too.”

“I'm sorry, Ecgfrith,” Éowyn said on cue, clearly and sincerely. “I just. I had a bad dream.”

Éowyn had obviously also told Ecgfrith enough about the bad dreams, if perhaps not the whole story. The nurse's face softened somewhat.

“Least said soonest mended, Lady Éowyn,” she said, reasonably kindly.

“Off you go,” Théodred said, patting Éowyn's shoulder, and was enormously surprised when she took two steps towards her nurse and then rushed back to him to throw her arms around him and squeeze so tightly Théodred remembered all that mead he'd drunk.

Éowyn shot away.

Théodred had never seen her hug anyone before, except Éomer. He stared rather dizzily after her.

“Good night,” he said to Ecgfrith, politely, and then went away.

He deliberately insinuated himself onto his father's table rather than returning directly to his men. He was promptly required to raise a toast, and (brain already sufficiently taxed by the evening's exercises in responsible cousinship) unoriginally raised it to the fighting men of the Mark, which got a cheer and a lot of ale and mead flying about the place.

“Where have you been?” Théoden said, when the clamour allowed.

“Talking to Éomer and Éowyn,” Théodred said.

Théoden raised both eyebrows, the only expression that brought out his otherwise subtle resemblance to Morwen Steelsheen. It always had the same effect on Théodred, no matter how old or battle-hardened he got. He tried to line up his thoughts coherently, which was difficult, because of all the outrage and grief and pride involved.

“Éowyn is a shieldmaiden,” he said finally. “I'll see to it she gets some lessons and practice clothes and then I think we'll all just have to get out of her way.”

“Is that wise?” said his father, who knew what politics looked like, and more particularly knew that there was only one marriageable princess in Théodred's generation, and that alliances would need to be carefully bought. He plainly had no idea that at the moment the idea of Éowyn's very theoretical future marriage made Théodred want to throw up, declare war, or both.

“Doesn't matter if it's wise,” Théodred said. “It's happened.” How was it Théoden was so much less drunk than he was despite having been in the hall a good hour longer? Was it a skill you developed when the crown hit your skull? “We can always tell the Gondorians she's like the woman in the story, you know, the People of... thing. People of Háma?”

“Probably not,” said his father, eyeing him with interest.

“Haleth!” Théodred exclaimed, tracking the childhood story reference to its source. “People of _Haleth_. She rallied her people after orcs killed her father and brothers, and that's what Éowyn's afraid of.”

He realised he had said too much somewhat too late, when the first intimations of a thunderstorm frown rolled across Théoden's face. “Who has been telling that little girl war st-“

“Father, nobody needed to,” Théodred said hastily, before he could accidentally blurt out that there had been a lot of storytellers and (thanks to Éowyn's guileless but detailed reporting) Théodred now had a lot of their names. “She's a clever girl. She pays attention. Nobody had to _tell_ her anything, it was happening all around her.”

If anything, Théoden frowned harder.

“This is a question for your grandmother,” he said finally. “But in the meantime... well spotted. Did you find Éomer too?”

“Yes,” Théodred said, and admitted: “She was beating seven kinds of hell out of him with a wooden sword.”

Théoden laughed until he cried. “Shieldmaiden it is,” he said, when he'd slapped the table once or twice and wiped his face. He took another couple of flagons of mead, and handed one to Théodred. “Drink to your cousin, my boy: Éowyn, Shieldmaiden of the Mark.”

The hangover was legendary. But Théodred still took his cousins to see their grandmother.


End file.
